Beef remark: Jayalalithaa files plea against daily

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Chief minister J. Jayalalithaa on Monday filed defamation complaints against Nakkheeran Gopal for printing a false article alleging that she ate beef and against Mr N. Ram of The Hindu for reproducing the malicious matter in his newspaper.

City public prosecutor M.L. Jagan moved the petitions on her behalf before the principal sessions court here.

The petition against Mr Gopal has also named his joint editor A. Kamaraj and reporter Umarmukhtat, while Mr B. Kolappan of The Hindu too figures as the author of the article that appeared in his paper.

The complaint against Nakkheeran editors was that they had deliberately printed falsehood that Ms Jayalalithaa ate beef and had also served the meat to her political mentor MGR, “only in an endeavour to malign her reputation and lower her esteem in the minds of the general public”. Neither she nor MGR had ever eaten beef. Also, the Nakkheran article had maliciously referred to her as belonging to ‘Brahmin mafia’ and as such not discharging her duties in an honest and impartial manner, said the complaint which is likely to come up for hearing in the next few days.

In a separate complaint, the chief minister said The Hindu reproduced the Nakkheeran article with a “malicious” caption: ‘Tamil bi-weekly had carried a report describing Jayalalithaa as a beef-eater’. Mr Ram and Mr Kolappan “cannot take shelter in that it was merely a repetition of what had already appeared in another news magazine”, she said, while pointing out that such “detailed reference” to the Nakkheeran article was not necessary while carrying the report in The Hindu on the alleged attack on the bi-weekly.

The chief minister recalled that the Supreme Court in a case had categorically held that every citizen had a right to safeguard the privacy of his and of his family and none can publish anything in such matters, whether laudatory or critical, without his/her consent.

“The ratio of this decision will apply not only to the original publication but also repetition of such publication which are defamatory to the individual concerned,” she said in her complaint, seeking their punishment under the IPC.